China needs oil to fuel it's new campaign to take new territory in the Pacific. So they decide to invade a tiny, oil-rich island. Now it's up to the US to stop the invasion of this island.

Seriously, that's it.

Recommended Age

Minimum Age

Available On...

14

12

PC, PS3, Xbox 360

Overall Fun

Length

Frustration

Violence

Sexuality

Substances

Gambling

3

4

8

7

0

2

0

Mods

Religion

Anti-Law

Community

Sports

Magic

Miscellaneous

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

1. Gameplay

Overall Fun - 3

Around 2001 or 2002 I picked up and played Operation Flashpoint. It was an interesting game, very different from Battlefield 1942 and Call of Duty. The ultrarealistic nature of the game made it a challenge. It had rough edges, but so did most shooters at that period. Despite its poor graphics and difficult controls, I pushed myself through it and eventually finished the campaign.

Somehow. With great difficulty.

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is close to what I expected in a sequel to the original Operation Flashpoint. The graphics are slightly improved, the gameplay is very similar, and the environment feels exactly the same. The enemy is Chinese instead of Russian, but otherwise it’s almost exactly the same.

But this isn’t the early 2000s. Over ten years and three Operation Flashpoint games later, I’m expecting to see a clear difference between the original and this one. Instead of giving me an experience closer to what I can get in the ARMA games, I’m getting something that was barely competitive in 2001.

This image looks much more exciting than the game actually is.

And the issues I could write off in 2001 as simply early mistakes that can be fixed in sequels are still present. The graphics and environment have no life, the game involves a somewhat ridiculous amount of foot travel for very little excitement, and the AI is so poor it’s laughable at best. It was a chore just to get through the around 9 hours of gameplay I did experience.

I never demand that a game is perfect, since that is an impossible and unfair request. But I do expect that all games should be enjoyable experiences. Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is anything but enjoyable. Without serious changes, I don’t expect Operation Flashpoint to ever be able to stand up against its current competition.

Length - 4

The entire campaign took me around 8 to 9 hours to complete. Despite this, it still felt long. The missions had less down time than the previous Operation Flashpoint game, but there were still plenty of times when I would have to run long distances in order to get involved in short engagements. It has almost no replayability.

The game’s length may have increased if the multiplayer had been functioning, but I was unable to log in and give it a try.

Frustration Factor - 8

The AI in this game, for both friendlies and enemies, is terrible. I’ve played plenty of games where the AI is broken in that, while programmed to perform a specific function, it simply fails to perform that function. Dragon Rising isn’t like that, its AI is simply completely braindead. There were a number of times when enemies would look straight at me and not fire and times when my friends would look straight at the enemy and do the same.

But there were plenty of times when I was happy that the AI was so incompetent, because when they weren’t they were extremely accurate. In a game where two or three hits leads to instant death and where my teammates are unable or unwilling to heal me, I was glad to have any advantage over my opponents.

My friends let an enemy get into our tank.

But even more frustrating was the fact that the AI’s stupidity was unpredictable. Sometimes I could shoot at them and they would have no idea where I was. Other times I would hit them seven times and they would turn and take me out with two hits. My teammates would sit and watch enemies that I tagged even if they were well within range.

This was even worse when I was piloting a vehicle. When piloting tanks there are three positions: driver, gunner, and commander. Ideally, I should have been the commander, issuing move orders to the driver and shoot orders to the gunner. However, my AI teammates could not properly fill either role, so I ended up having to drive up to where I could see the enemy tanks, quickly switch to the gunner position, and destroy the enemy tanks before they shot me. It was a slow, frustrating crawl through one level.

2. Parental Notices

Violence - 7

Violence is extremely mild in Dragon Rising. The player will engage in violence in certain sections, but for the most part the engagements will be brief. Most enemies will die from three to five hits, and there are very few times when the player will engage more than a dozen enemies in a mission. The ultrarealistic nature of the game discourages the player from entering open combat, although in some cases it will be unavoidable.

There is blood here, I promise.

Hits will result in a small puff of red blood. This will often be difficult to see because of the distance at which the player will engage targets. The natural bullet drop that will come with most weapons will also hide some of the blood at extreme distances.

This is a pretty typical shot.

On extremely rare occasions, enemies that were hit with certain weapons would lose body parts. I am unsure if this was a bug or intended design, since I was unable to replicate what I saw. On one occasion I managed to find a headless enemy, which might have been caused by getting hit with a high-powered weapon or RPG, but this was so rare that I cannot say for sure how it happened.

I'm really not sure if this is a bug or was intended.

I do know that if a character gets hit with a tank round, he will explode into very pixilated body parts. This was so rare, though, that I only ever saw it once.

The chunks on the bottom left were me at one time.

Sexuality - 0

Sexuality is not a factor in this game.

Substances - 2

The only substance that is visible in the game comes in if a medic heals another character. The medic will take out a syringe and point it at the air in the vicinity of the character who he is trying to heal. It looks ridiculous when he does it since he almost never actually touches the character, even though that character is still healed.

Dude, the cap is still on.

Gambling - 0

Gambling is not a factor in this game.

3. Other Factors

Mods - 1

There are mods available for this game. However, they are almost exclusively mods that affect the gameplay mechanics and visual elements of the campaign. They do not add anything worth noting from a maturity angle.

Religion - 0

Religion is not a factor in this game.

Anti-Law - 0

The territorial conflict going on in this game is between nations and therefore does not involve any law enforcement. As a result, anti-law is not a factor in this game.

Online Community - 0

I was unable to connect to the multiplayer servers. As a result the online community is not a factor in this game.